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Emerging Pandemic Threats - USAID

Over recent decades, multiple epidemic events have underscored how highly vulnerable we are to viral threats. Our world is globally connected—and an "emerging threat" in one part of the world can pose a threat everywhere and to everyone.

About 75 percent of new human diseases are caused by microbes that originate in animals. These include HIV, influenzas (including pandemic H1N1, H5N1, and H7N9), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Ebola, Marburg, and Nipah. Several of these have spread extensively in human populations, causing global epidemics (also known as pandemics).